By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports 

CALGARY, Alberta —  Mason Moody’s goal entering the 2025 rodeo season is to make it to Las Vegas in December for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. 

The Letcher bull rider currently sits sixth in the PRCA World Standings with $108,014 in money earned this season including 85 and 75 point rides at the Calgary Stampede Rodeo which netted the 22-year-old $6,900 earlier this week.  

“Calgery is one of the best,” Moody said of the prestigious Canadian rodeo that dates back to 1886. “There’s two rodeos like it. This and Houston, and when you get to go to them, you know they are the biggest rodeos of the year. I’ve never been to the NFR, but I can only imagine what the NFR is like.”

For Moody his sixth place ranking sets him pretty well for a spot at the Thomas and Mack Center at the end of the year, with the top 15 making it to the NFR. However, he knows there’s still a lot of work ahead. 

“I’m in a good spot but I can’t keep the foot off the gas or they are going to catch me,” Moody said. “That’s the only goal (making the NFR) that I have. I have won the circuit finals and now there’s pretty much one goal left and that is to make the NFR. That’s the only goal that I have left.”

Moody will be back in South Dakota later this month including the Corn Palace Stampede Rodeo in Mitchell.  

“I’ll go back to Deadwood and then Mitchell but after that I’m not coming back (to South Dakota),” he said. “I already got my circuit count so I don’t have to come back. It’s just that the Mitchell rodeo is right by my house and it worked out in my schedule.” 

Moody comes from a family who all rodeo including three older sisters. He said when he was little, his parents told him he went through about eight DVDs of the movie “8 Seconds”, starring Luke Perry and based upon the life of world champion bull rider Lane Frost.  

“I just grew up loving bull riding and it worked out that I was good at it. I put a lot of time into it and here we are now,” Moody said.  

Moody spent the first few years as a professional with Professional Bull Riders before deciding to stay with the regular rodeos for the last two years. 

“PBR is one of the deals where you are either making a killing (money) or you just kind of get by,” Moody said. “I was never on the top of the world standings making a killing at it and over here with rodeoing, it’s fun and I’m making a good living at it.” 

He said that with rodeo you get to meet different people because every week is new, whereas the PBR it’s the same event every week in the same building with the same people. 

“It kind of just made it a job and rodeo is fun for me,” Moody said of the difference. 

He added that he’s not opposed to a possible return to the PBR, but right now he’s perfectly fine traveling from rodeo to rodeo, which can be a maximum of 120 for the year. So far this year, Moody said he’s been to about 60 rodeos while last year he only made it to 97 including sitting out a month and a half after tearing his ACL. 

“The max is 120 and if you’re healthy all year long you should get close to that,” Moody said. “This is our busy time of the year. You can go to a rodeo every day from now until the middle of September.”